A Victory at Doha?

The Doha round has reached a successful negotiation. Though the agriculture issues have NOT been sorted out, this IS a momentous occasion.

Until now, there has been no central arbiter of globalization. Globalization was allowed to proceed more or less unchecked during the 2000’s. This culminated in a level of interdependence that allowed a bubble in the American real estate and stock markets to have profound implications worldwide.

In the years follow 2008, we have seen a total collapse of world trade. In an effort to restart their economies, many (most?) of the world economies are now printing large sums of money. However, this may spark protests of a “trade war”, and indeed, the direction I had expected this to go was a more and more protectionist stance in the major world economies.

Now that the WTO has some credibility as an international arbiter, there is hope that this will be averted. In addition, there is more reason to believe that global trade will resume the growth trajectory that it has been on for the past 20 years.

Thus, a speculation on the global shipping industry looks like a solid proposition to capitalize on the resurgence of global trade from the doldrums of the 2008-2012 period. Dryships, (DRYS), a company that has suffered immensely during the downturn, is my initial consideration, though I will have to do much more research over the upcoming days to find ways to best take advantage of this trend. Following a rationale of “invest first, investigate later”, I have already begun to build a position in DRYS, and I am investigating the financials of several shipping and ancillary businesses.